Frugal Village Forums banner

getting started

2K views 6 replies 7 participants last post by  Nadders11 
#1 ·
My husband and I have had a "budget" worked up for a while now but starting in august we are beginning to work the baby steps and really need to actually STICK to the budget that we have failed miserably at thus far. August is ofcourse a very unsure month and very tight due to a smaller paycheck he's getting on the July 30th paycheck due to some unpaid days he had to take last month. We had a lot of unsure expenses so should i be over budgeting so we have "extra" instead of less or just go with an average or best guess. We anticipate a lot of emergency budget meetings this month since so many things are unknowns.

But i'm confused about how to get control of this.

We'll use envelope for Groceries, joint blow money and separate blow money. We will use debit for gas tracked on Mint and he will use debit for groceries for the rare times when he needs to stop to pick something up. We are paid on the 10th, 15th, 25th, and 30th of the month. Mortgage we usually pay at the beginning. i feel like it would be easier to pay from the end but switching would require us to pay double one month. So its gotta come out of the beginning.

Do you guys bother dividing up when to take money out when or just know what paycheck big bills are coming from and take out cash when you can?
I know dave has the budget form where you divide up what you are spending each week. Should i try to get all that figured out and divide that among pay periods instead. And should i try to get that figured out weekly/per pay period and get that down to zero or just enough to get a rough idea since things like gas are going to vary throughout the month. Should i be counting the July 30th paycheck as the first paycheck for August?

I know this is going to take a while to get used to but i'm looking for some guidance as to what you all have found works best or how you work dividing expenses among paychecks.
 
See less See more
#2 ·
Should i try to get all that figured out and divide that among pay periods instead.
Yes. What I did was look at last month's bills, due dates, etc and plan for the next month to be pretty much the same. Figured out when the money would be in the account (paycheck deposit) and when I could pay things. It was a lot of accounting work but I had to keep track of it to keep from bouncing checks and make sure the essentials were paid.

Chop up the credit cards and it becomes really easy to stick to a cash/debit only budget.
 
#3 ·
how long have you had mint.com set up? do you know where you've been going over every month? one thing that helped my stick to the grocery budget at first was to take the amount i had budgeted for the month and divide it by the number of paychecks that month. I'd keep that amount out of each paycheck for groceries, it kept me from getting to the end of the month and realizing i still had week to go and no money for fresh stuff milk fruit etc.
 
#4 ·
Have you considered using the YNAB software? I had a similar problem - I would setup a budget in Excel, but things fell apart when I could not track my actual spending against my planned spending. Using YNAB (You Need A Budget) software fixed that problem for me.
 
#5 ·
I divide everything up into weekly payments (including mortgage). I have some online accounts linked to my current bank account. These are my envelopes. I found it took 2-3 months to get it working correctly, but I am now ahead with most envelopes and am able to save extra. Check with your bank in what they can offer you. You could have sub-accounts and a debit card for groceries and petrol etc.
 
#6 ·
When we started out the once a month and less frequent payments were the hardest to get under control and destroyed our budget every time. It's going to be a few months before your budget settles down. don't expect perfection the first month.

We added up all our yearly big expenses that were paid less frequently than once a month...car insurance (once a year), house insurance (once a year), property taxes (once a year), etc. Then looked at the number of paychecks before each was due. We divided the bill by the number of paychecks before it was due. Then we added all those numbers up and put that amount in a short term savings account to pull on when needed.

It takes about one year for this to work out. We would redo the budget monthly, and this calculation, to make sure we didn't find ourselves short by the end of the month.

HTH
 
#7 ·
Line up bill due dates ans your pays on a calendar. Are you short anywhere? Do you have a lot left over on one pay? Either take more from the pay with extra for other bills or switch billing dates around to suit your pays.

For a long while I was moving money from this pay to this bill later in the month...and it worked but I just got tired of it, so I called up some bills that were messing me up and got them to move the billing date. When you do this your next bill will be either more or less, but it will work out better later.

I would divide your envelop money by pays. And take out that money each pay. If you take out lots at the first of the month for example, it's more likely you'll spend it rather than saving it for the 15 ..etc

You need a slush fund for irregular expanses or they will kill your budget. I don't do monthly for these. I add up what will will need each year, and when I can put lump sums into my savings since our paychecks are all over the place. It may be easier for you to save x amount for this expense in the future from each pay.

It will take a while to get YOUR system right. Just keep trying.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top